Two killed, five wounded in shooting at Tel Aviv bar

Police in Tel Aviv are searching for a gunman who killed at least two people and wounded five others in a bar in the city centre on Friday afternoon.

It was not yet clear whether the attack was an act of terrorism or was criminal in nature.

The police were concentrating their search on buildings near the site of the attack, Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said on Twitter.

The wounded were taken to hospitals in Tel Aviv, Rosenfeld said.

Nati Shakked, owner of the Simta bar on Dizengoff Street, which was hit by the gunfire, said the assailant had waited on a bench outside before taking a machine-gun out of a bag and "shooting in every direction".

Israel has seen a wave of Palestinian street attacks since October, fuelled in part by Muslim anger over stepped-up Jewish visits to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque complex, also sacred to Jews, as well as long-stalled peace talks.

“It was a terrorist attack, without a doubt,” Shakked told Israel’s Channel Two television.

Police said a manhunt was under way in Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital. Reuters